Skip to main content

Ballerina Scouts

Once a week I exchange my usual uniform - t-shirt and jeans/khakis - for t-shirt, jeans/khakis with an extra large tan shirt emblazoned with "Boy Scouts of America" in red thread. I wear it well.

Last den meeting, another leader had planned to do a physical fitness component but got a little green around the gills. In order to pass this requirement, the boys were to perform a bunch of specific stretches before engaging in combat activities.


I grabbed Liz's manual and looked at the stretches. I had all the boys line up in front of me and demonstrated each stretch. They looked at me with concentration and followed me exactly. Just for fun, I tried the "warrior" yoga pose. They followed me. Could they do ballet? I put my feet and hands in second position. I went through
plié, relevé, grand plié. Each boy followed me without question. I pushed it a little further with rond de jambe, tendu, and finally demi-plién transitioning into glissade. I stopped myself before attempting fouetté rond de jambe en tournant. That would be obvious.

"Are you teaching us Yoga poses?" one 9 year old boy asked with a disgusted look on his face.

I could honestly say that I was not.

Comments

  1. Tee hee. They will thank you later. Football players learn ballet!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hahaha- Since they are 9 is it a Bear den?

    ReplyDelete
  3. If anyone had asked, I'd have said they were ninja training moves...cuz maybe they are...who knows, I'm not a ninja!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I like Junes answer...tell them they are ninja moves!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hilarious!

    And cute new look, btw!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh to have been a fly on the wall!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oy! I have learnt that ballet is great for self-defense! Teach boys that a grand battement is an excellent attack with proper aim.

    I for one, would have been stunned if you'd gotten them to perform a fouetté rond de jambe en tournant in one session. If so, I would beg of you to come help me work on mine! :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Braces!

13 year old got braces today! She also had a little helper on her.

Christmas Gifts

Jill is the slice of home baked pie you long for. Her dad was a farmer. His dad was a farmer. On a hot summer day Jill would call me up to go floating down the canal or ride the slick rocks with the stream into a barely thawed pool of water. She's also the girl I called one day when I was bored and offered to drive two hours and try out this new thing called "Bungee Jumping." We did although I can't remember why . The first year after my college graduation I found myself particularly low on pride.  First of all, I was a college graduate working as a sales clerk.  Too late I discovered that a bachelors degree in sociology is equal to a high school diploma and, in some cases, a G.E.D. and got you hired at JC Penney trying to upsale with a colorful scarf.  On top of it, I'd been dumped.  It wasn't that he was the love of my life.  In fact, it was quite the opposite.  He started planning the wedding aloud and I freaked out, pointing out that we'd only bee...

They Call Me Grace

I was nearly 8 years old when my baby sister was born. This was quite fortunate since I was well adept at reading. I was tired of my name. Nancy. So plain. The Sunday comics included a comic strip called Nancy. She hung out with her stupid little boyfriend named Russell, was very boring and cried all the time. Why would parents who love their child name her such a boring name? I assumed they had run out of originality by this point. I was, after all, their third child. There was Mike, then Suzy, after me they had Joey (short for Joanne) and finally Jene Marie. The "j" a soft French slur. It was fitting. We had a French surname. But clearly Jene Marie was their crowning glory. Do I hate for taking all the love from my parents and hogging it for herself? Of course not. She's my sister. She's my baby sister. But if I happen to feel the need to speak to her when she's at work, I always ask for her by using both names; Jene Marie (with the schwa). I don't want her...